This is intimidation, pure and simple. Fundamental legal protections have been swept away in the “war on terror”—whose putative purpose was to go after scary bearded men living in caves—and the state is now going after citizens who speak out against government corruption. When will they come knocking on “Government Against the People”‘s door? When will they come knocking on your door?

A local blogger who was critical of Rep. Billy Long during last year’s congressional campaign has been interviewed by the FBI about his encounters with the congressman.

Clay Bowler, who lives in Christian County, says he was shocked to find an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation at his doorstep. Accompanying the agent was Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott.

The agent asked Bowler if he was a threat to Long, a notion Bowler finds laughable.

“I’m not a threat to Billy Long,” Bowler said Thursday. “I find the whole thought very funny, because I’m such an advocate for constitutional rights that I would never do anything that would put in jeopardy those constitutional rights like the Second Amendment.”

The author of this column claims that the sole purpose of the Dept. of Homeland security is to provide bonanzas for favored congressional districts. Its purpose goes further than that: To maintain a constant mood of low-level fear so the people will continue going along with government abuses of power.

Hardly anyone has seriously scrutinized either the priorities or the spending patterns of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its junior partner, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), since their hurried creation in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Sure, they get criticized plenty. But year in, year out, they continue to grow faster and cost more — presumably because Americans think they are being protected from terrorism by all that spending. Yet there is no evidence whatsoever that the agencies are making Americans any safer.

DHS serves only one clear purpose: to provide unimaginable bonanzas for favored congressional districts around the United States, most of which face no statistically significant security threat at all. One thinks of the $436,504 that the Blackfeet Nation of Montana received in fiscal 2010 “to help strengthen the nation against risks associated with potential terrorist attacks”; the $1,000,000 that the village of Poynette, Wisconsin (pop. 2,266) received in fiscal 2009 for an “emergency operations center”; or the $67,000 worth of surveillance equipment purchased by Marin County, California, and discovered, still in its original packaging, four years later. And indeed, every U.S. state, no matter how landlocked or underpopulated, receives, by law, a fixed percentage of homeland security spending every year.

As for the TSA, I am not aware of a single bomber or bomb plot stopped by its time-wasting procedures. In fact, TSA screeners consistently fail to spot the majority of fake “bombs” and bomb parts the agency periodically plants to test their skills. In Los Angeles, whose airport was targeted by the “millennium plot” on New Year’s 2000, screeners failed some 75 percent of these tests.

Notice that the videographer calmly asserts his rights, he is polite, he is fully informed about the TSA’s own regulations, and perhaps most importantly, he responds to questions with questions of his own. This strategy–responding to questions with questions–is one of the most potent ways to deal with “the authorities.”

The cop’s performance at the end of the video, where he stands in the middle of the road flashing a strobe light at the videographer, is quite interesting. What is the purpose of this display other than to demonstrate who is in charge? In what way could standing in the middle of a roadway flashing a strobe enhance public safety?

About 10 demonstrators gathered at PHL on December 23, 2010. The purpose was to educate travelers about the dangers of new TSA procedures. (www.WeWontFly.com)

Traffic was slow, so while the others were passing out flyers, I took the opportunity to observe TSA and Philadelphia police. Notice how they all claim the authority to boss us around. But when you stand your ground they go away.

People continue to express shock at the abuse they’re subjected to at the hands of security agents at airports. How much more obvious could it be that the federal government is out to humiliate the people, to keep us in our place? Is there still anyone who believes that this activity is intended to protect us from “terrorists”?

The holiday brought bittersweet news: unless the Transportation Security Authority disbands, I’ll never see a certain friend of mine again. His long-term unemployment finally ended, and next month, he starts a great new job. But it’s in Texas, too far to drive; from my place in Connecticut to his new home in San Antonio is 2,000 miles – 500 more than separates London from Moscow.

As an American – that is, someone considered lucky to get seven consecutive days off work – the only way I could possibly travel such distance is to fly. But flying includes the legal obligation I submit to having my genitalia groped by some TSA thug wearing the same latex gloves already shoved down nine dozen other strangers’ underwear. There’s only two ways an American flyer can reliably avoid this: be rich enough to buy your own plane, or a high-ranking congressman or other VIP exempt from the indignities they inflict upon ordinary citizens.

The ACLU maintains an ever-growing database of these indignities, many so graphic they’re illegal to broadcast over public airwaves. Actions that violate FCC standards are embraced by the TSA. “Mary in Texas” reported:

“The TSA agent used her hands to feel under and between my breasts. She then rammed her hand up into my crotch until it jammed into my pubic bone … I was touched in the pubic region in between my labia … She then moved her hand across my pubic region and down the inner part of my upper thigh to the floor. She repeated this procedure on the other side. I was shocked and broke into tears.”

A state government anti-terrorism agency placed the Tennessee ACLU on a map of “terrorism events and other suspicious activity” for sending a letter warning public schools not to celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday.

The ACLU expressed outrage Tuesday over its appearance on the Tennessee Fusion Center’s map, saying it “raises the specter that the government is once again tracking innocent Americans.”

“It is deeply disturbing that Tennessee’s fusion center is tracking First Amendment-protected activity,” said Hedy Weinberg, ACLU-Tennessee’s executive director. “Equating a group’s attempts to protect religious freedom in Tennessee with suspicious activity related to terrorism is outrageous. Religious freedom is a founding principle in our Constitution — not fodder for overzealous law enforcement.”

The Tennessee Fusion Center was created in 2007, one of many around the country established after 9/11 to help state agencies share and analyze information about terrorism and other threats.

“While the ostensible purpose of fusion centers, to improve sharing of anti-terrorism intelligence among different levels and arms of government, is legitimate and important, using the centers to monitor protected First Amendment activity clearly crosses the line,” the ACLU said in a news release.

LOS ANGELES — Travelers passing through Los Angeles International Airport are finding that security officers have more than a scan or pat-down for them this holiday season. They’re offering musical entertainment, too.

The LAX TSA Choir, a group of 17 singers and musicians, all of them officers of the Transportation Security Administration, have been surprising passengers with performances of holiday music and other tunes in the midst of one of the nation’s busiest airports.

See? Those federal agents who have been scanning and groping people are just regular, happy-go-lucky people, every bit as fun-loving as these folks:

In a rare departure from standard practice, a mainstream news source draws parallels between several recent cases in which federal provocateurs prodded unstable patsies towards committing acts of terror.

PORTLAND — FBI undercover operatives helped fund Mohamed Osman Mohamud’s would-be terrorism plot to detonate a car bomb during a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony on Friday at a crowded public square in the heart of the city.

Operatives helped him find components needed to create a bomb and schooled the 19-year-old Somali-born man in how to set off the explosives.

The sting operation enabled the FBI to amass a formidable amount of details about what a grand-jury indictment Monday charged was Mohamud’s attempt to use a car bomb as a “weapon of mass destruction.”

But Mohamud’s attorneys and some local Muslims are raising questions about whether the operatives who posed as co-conspirators played their role too well.

“The information released by the government raises serious concerns about the government manufacturing a crime,” according to a statement released by Sady and Steven Wax, public defenders assigned to represent Mohamud.